Show me a shot of someone running a 100 meter dash, straight at the camera. That will tell us more.
Funny, that's exactly what I'm going to have a friend do when I try one out at the camera shop.
I'm not an expert on C-AF/Tracking technology testing, but why a shot series of someone running strait at the camera, meaning probably tripode (no IS testing) and meaning checking AF in just one single and permament point of the complete sensor area?
Wouldn't it be better the handheld (IS active) C-AF/Tracking of birds in flight (BIF), whit their unpredictable paterns, erratic velocities and changing shapes?
Simple. My camera shop isn't located near an aviary or playground, but there is a nice, long sidewalk outside. Also, having the subject run towards or away from the camera requires it to make the fastest changes in focus. I don't know why you assumed this kind of testing would be done using a tripod, and no IS.
Believe me, my idea was not critizising you, but trying to offer a better and more available and natural subject also (I'll explain below) for C-AF/Tracking testing in terms of evaluating the most variables possible at the same time.
First, and this is totally true an anybody can try it whenever they want, since in fact we all live in aviaries but we have managed to forget it, It's hundreds time easier, since you are going to go outside the shop, to see a bird flying in the sky than a person running on the sidewalk, unless he is followed by a police officer. You don't need to involve anybody else to do the first, it happens naturaly and contantsly.
A bird will also run (fly in this case) towards and away from you, but several time fasters, and not using just the same spot of the sensor, in unpredictable patterns, at different speeds and always changing the shape to be tracked. Taking advantage of the name that Olympus indeed gave to this feature, C-AF "3D", your hard to find in real world subject would just be some kind of C-AF "1D" test.
Even though you plan to use IS on for handheld tracking the man running strait towards and away from you, in fact you would not be really using it at its maximum since the subject would be just in one axis, 1D.
If you check even the first photos and videos from the "experts" from different "serious review sites" who were invited to Amsterdam to be amazed by the extraordinary performance of new and revolutionary E-M5 3D tracking feature, you can see photos and videos of slow boats and anchored submarines, but nobody did the test of 3D track any of the dozens of birds that you can see flying and evolving in those same video images and photos. Isn't that odd?
Ed
